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A faded Ansonia street sign.
Photo: Contributed PhotoA faded Ansonia street sign.
A faded Ansonia street sign.
A faded Ansonia street sign.
ANSONIA — Call it a sign of the times.
Ansonia officials are a mission to replace dozens of sun-faded and aging street name signs — many which are becoming unreadable — to help spruce up city streets.
According to Greg Martin, the city’s director of constituent services, the city has found a cost-effective way to do it. Rather than replace some 80 metal signs at a cost of about $5,500, Martin said a cheaper alternative will cost about $1,750.
The solution is to use a laminate, bumper-sticker-like covering which gets pasted directly over the current sign, Martin said. Arrow Printers in the city’sdowntown makes the laminates.
Martin said the city recently “tested” some of the laminates on severely faded signs, and so far the product is holding up nicely.
“This is an outside-the-box approach for street name signs which can be costly and adds up quickly,” Martin said. “This approach I’m sure has been used for retail stores or restaurants. I’m taking that approach and applying it to city signs at dramatic cost savings.”
Martin said the city identified some 40 signs in need of replacement from driving around town, as well as input from residents, via a poll conducted on the city’s Facebook page. He expects to double that number come spring.
“It is estimated that upwards of 100 signs that face relentless daily sun, have faded beyond reading,” Martin said.
Some of the street signs identified in poor condition and in line for a fix include Beaver, Cottage, East, Fourth, Jewett, Johnson and Moulthrop streets; Myrtle Avenue, North Cliff and North Spring streets; Old Stage Coach Road and Root Avenue; S outh Cliff, Tomlinson, Willow and Winter streets; and Webb Terrace.
Martin said the idea to fix the street name signs with the laminate alternative came to him about three years ago. He wanted to see some “classy” municipal parking lot signs installed, but after pricing them from a couple of local signmakers, found them to be costly, at about $1,500 per sign. He said the city would have needed four of them. Instead of spending $6,000, Martin came across the computer-generated graphics, printed onto laminate, instead of hand-painted signs, and got them for $1,000. Public Works built the wooden sign boards and posts, and the laminate signs were installed, and for the last three years, Martin said they’ve held up beautifully.
Martin also used the same laminate product to make the 15 Adopt-A-Spot signs around town, which he said are holding up just as well going into year three.
Martin said the backstory of why the metal street name signs are aging so poorly started some 10 years ago. He said the city replaced the smaller, green street name signs in most wards with the new, larger blue ones. However, he said the company that made the signs used a “bad batch of 3M material,” which Martin said if exposed to long doses of daily sun, would fade quickly. The city ultimately contacted the company, which, in turn, provided about 50 replacements, but as of late, another batch of the original signs have fallen prey to major fading and are nearly unreadable. But Martin said the company this time around won’t provide any more replacements, which is why Martin sought out a cheaper solution.
“This was my lower-cost test solution versus buying new,” said Martin.
Residents who haven’t reached out via Facebook to report a sign in need of replacement can contact Martin at City Hall at gmartin@ansoniact.org.
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February 17, 2020 at 06:00PM
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Ansonia official comes up with lower-cost fix for aging street signs - New Haven Register
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